


Stag Don't

by AllonsyBatch



Series: Story Unending [2]
Category: Shades of London Series - Maureen Johnson
Genre: Callum Throws Stephen a Bachelor Party, Engagement, F/M, One Shot, Stag Nights & Bachelor Parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-12 08:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19943167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllonsyBatch/pseuds/AllonsyBatch
Summary: One-shot: Callum throws Stephen a Bachelor Party.  This is a terrible idea. (In the same universe asStory Unending, although you really don't have to have read it to get this.





	Stag Don't

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LarkandLioness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LarkandLioness/gifts).



It probably wasn’t Rory’s smartest decision to answer the doorbell after two in the morning, but considering the circumstances, she figured it was a safe bet as to who was behind it. She’d been living with Stephen in their new apartment (Flat! She had to get used to that.) for nearly six months, which meant they’d been engaged for a little over seven. Their engagement was full of excitement, but after their most recent episode of Callum and Boo interrupting during a rather intimate moment, it was decided that they would get their own place. 

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, shaking the sleep out of her head from where she had been dozing on the couch. She looked through the peephole, and what she saw made her rest her head against the door for a moment and sigh. 

“I’m going to _kill_ Callum.” 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

_Sixteen hours earlier_

“Callum, you better bring him back in one piece,” Rory warned, pouring coffee for Boo while everyone tucked into breakfast. Even though they had their own place, it was nothing for Boo and Callum to be there for breakfast, or even lunch and dinner for that matter. 

“Relax, Ror, it’s just a Stag Do!” Callum laughed, putting an enormous bite of food in his mouth. 

“Well, in America we call them ‘Bachelor Parties’ and they seem to be a chance for men to make absolute fools of themselves,” she argued, sitting down to eat. 

“Pretty much the same here,” Boo agreed. “Drinks, strippers, the lot.” 

“No strippers,” Stephen replied firmly. “I swear to god, Cal, if you make a big deal about this I am calling a cab and coming home.” 

Stephen had reluctantly agreed to going out with Callum prior to the wedding ages ago, but as the night got closer, Rory could tell he was actually looking forward to it. He rarely went out anymore as he poured himself into their work, constantly finding cases for them to all go on and researching Rory’s and his newfound abilities. 

“No need to get your panties in a bunch, boss,” Callum assured Stephen, clapping him on the back hard enough for Stephen to choke on his coffee. “We’ll just get a few drinks, tease you for a few hours, and get you home safe and sound to your lady.” 

“Callum, I will be calling you every hour on the hour and I expect him to have water between every drink,” Rory warned him, holding her spoon threateningly in Callum’s face. “And if he is not returned to me in mint condition, I will personally make you explode.”

Callum laughed as he sipped his coffee, looking like he was about as afraid of Rory as he was of a butterfly.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“You know you are allowed to have fun, right?” Rory asked as she watched Stephen get dressed. He finally settled on a button-up and jeans, putting his foot up on the bed to tie his sneakers. 

“I know, and to be honest, Cal is pretty good about having fun at the pub,” he admitted. 

“So, these other guys you’re meeting there?” Rory asked, Stephen having mentioned the mystery friends earlier in the week.

“Friends from school-I haven’t seen them since, well…it’s been a long time,” he admitted cryptically, although Rory didn’t have to ask what he had meant. 

“Do they know what happened to you?”

Stephen shook his head, standing up and smoothing his shirt before checking himself in the mirror. “As far as they know, I got sick and left, and finished my final year after they all graduated,” he explained. 

“But they were your friends?”

“Rowing mates mostly, but yeah, they were good guys,” he sighed. “I just…I don’t really know how to talk to them anymore, you know? That feels like it was another lifetime ago.”

Rory stood up and went to stand behind him as he looked in the mirror. She wrapped her arms around his waist and stood on her tiptoes to look at him over his shoulder. 

“Just go, have fun, and be safe,” she told him, kissing his cheek and watching some of the tension leave his body. 

“You’re really okay with it?”

“Of course I am,” she assured him, fingers tickling the bottom of his ribs. 

“I promise, Cal’s not stupid enough to hire strippers.”

“Boo would kill him, I’m not worried about it,” Rory laughed. “Besides, you’re allowed to look at the selection, just not make any purchases.” 

Stephen finally laughed, his body relaxing more in her grip. They heard a car pull up outside, followed by relentless honking of a horn. 

“Well, my chariot awaits, it seems,” he sighed, turning around and giving Rory what he meant to be a quick kiss, before she grabbed the sides of his face and deepened it. 

He tensed before melting into her, his own hands finding their way around her waist. 

“Or…I could lock the door and stay here?” he mumbled, lips still against hers.

“No, you go and have fun,” Rory laughed, poking a finger to his chest. 

“Tease,” he sighed, sneaking in one more kiss before they headed outside, Callum hanging out of the car door while he honked. 

“Let’s go, Dene! Places to go! Shots to drink!”

“Don’t worry, Thorpe’s coming to pick up the car, we’ll take a cab home,” Stephen assured Rory, giving her one more kiss, much to Callum’s chagrin. 

“You have the rest of your lives to make out! Let’s _goooooo_!”

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[From: Stephen 22:27]  
_Still alive._

[From: Rory 22:27]  
_So glad. How are your school friends? Drink some water._

[From: Stephen 22:28]  
_Like we never left. Have a bottle beside me._

[From: Rory 22:28]  
_Have fun. Say hi to Thorpe for me._

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[From: Stephen 23:59]  
_CAl reminded be to chevk inn eith u._

[From: Rory 00:00]  
_Stop what you’re doing and go chug some water. Now._

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

[From: Stephen 00:23]  
_wear eben is long ilsand? still wgong to hvae ice in tea._

[From: Rory 00:23]  
_Give Cal the phone right this second._  
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“What? Rory, I can’t hear you!” Callum shouted, plugging his other ear with one finger. 

“Where is Stephen and is he still breathing?” Rory asked, holding the phone a few inches from her face as the cacophony of the pub assaulted her ear. 

“Stephen? He’s…” Callum grimaced and looked over to the stage, where Stephen was holding a drink in one hand and a microphone in the other, his shirt hanging untucked from his jeans and face pink as he sang.

“ _Sing usssss a s-song, yeeeeer the p-yano man!!!!!  
Ssssssing us a ssssssong tonight!_”

“He’s…fine,” Callum answered, hoping Rory wouldn’t recognize the “singing” voice in the background. 

“Callum, he better be okay,” Rory warned, looking at the clock as it ticked closer to one in the morning. 

“We’re taking care of him, Ror,” Callum shouted into the phone. “He’s having a blast!”

Rory could hear the sound of clapping and clinking glass in the background, and what sounded like someone chanting “Encore!”

“Gotta go, Ror!” The phone disconnected, and Rory sighed as she sat her own phone down on the coffee table and settled back into the couch. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Rory had no idea how long she had been asleep on the couch when the doorbell rang, but a quick look at the clock told her that the pubs had been closed for a while now. She knew there was a chance that the boys would take their party back to Callum and Boo’s flat, but she would have thought Boo would have called her to let her know-

[One missed call-Boo 02:37]

[From: Boo 02:38]  
_I’m so sorry._

This couldn’t be good. Rory sighed as she walked out of the living room, afraid of what she was going to find on her doorstep that even Boo felt the need to apologize about. 

She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered, shaking the sleep out of her head from where she had been dozing on the couch. She looked through the peephole, and what she saw made her rest her head against the door for a moment and sigh. 

“I’m going to _kill_ Callum.” 

Standing on her doorstep was Stephen, the smile on his face betraying the fact that he was drunk as a skunk, but not that anything else was out of the ordinary. The problem lied in the fact that he was completely naked. Well, he was still wearing his sneakers. And covering (or not really covering) his crotch was a single gift bow, making Rory concerned that Stephen was already in this position when they ran into the twenty-four hour Tesco to buy it. 

“Get inside, you idiot,” Rory sighed, having to force down a laugh at his goofy expression as she yanked him by the arm into the apartment. 

“Surprise!” he shouted, Rory putting a hand over his mouth in fear that their neighbors would call the cops on them. 

“Christ, Stephen, how much did you have to drink?” 

“Just…a lot,” he mumbled, holding up his fingers and screwing his face up as if he were trying to count in his head. 

“You’re drinking two bottles of water before you go to bed,” she scolded, pushing Stephen down the hall and stepping over the bow as it fell to the floor, Rory feeling her face heat to a dark crimson. 

“But…you’re going to bed with me, right?” he asked, turning to Rory to give what she assumed was supposed to be a seductive look, but just came off like he was going to throw up. 

“Absolutely not, and if you puke in our bed, I’m killing you in the morning, for real this time,” she warned, pushing him into the kitchen before opening the fridge and extracting three bottles of water. “Start drinking.” 

“S’what got me into this mess,” he giggled, taking a drink from the bottle and dribbling water all down the front of him.

“Where are your clothes?”

Stephen looked down, like the fact that he was stark naked was a new discovery. 

“Where _are_ my clothes?” 

“Give me strength,” Rory sighed, running a hand over her face. 

Rory was hoping to get him a shower, as he smelled like booze was seeping out of his pores, but the moment she managed to man-handle Stephen to the back of their apartment, he collapsed on the bed, not even bothering to pull the blankets back. Rory sighed again as she listened to him snore, his bare ass drawing nearly all her attention where he lay on the bed. With one final sigh, she grabbed a blanket from the living room, covered him up, and went back to lay on the couch. 

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Rory was sore when she woke up, and it took a minute for her to remember why she had been sleeping on the couch rather than their comfortable bed. When she did remember, she groaned, terrified of what she was going to find in their bedroom this morning. 

However, when she went to the bedroom, she was shocked to find it empty. The blanket she had used to cover Stephen up the night before was gone, and there was only a vaguely Stephen-shaped indentation on the bed where he had been lying. She had a sneaking suspicion of where he was, and it was confirmed as she heard a groan from the other side of the ensuite bathroom door. 

At some point, Stephen had had the foresight to pull on underwear, but Rory doubted it was doing much for his ego at the moment. He was lying in the fetal position on the bathroom floor, the blanket from the bed wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. She flipped the light on, Stephen immediately groaning louder and pulling the blanket over his face.

“Turn it _offffff_ ,” he whined, his voice raspy and cracking as he folded himself into an even tighter ball on the floor. 

“Have you thrown up yet?” Rory asked, turning the light back off and rolling her eyes. 

“So many times…” he mumbled, tentatively pulling the blanket back off his face. “I think I actually threw up my stomach.” 

“Well, at least it’s out of your system now,” Rory sighed, disappearing for a few minutes and coming back to shove something into one of Stephen’s hands. “Eat that.” 

He looked down at the cracker like it was poisonous, groaning once more. “I can’t.” 

“You can, or I’m going to shove it down your throat,” Rory warned, watching Stephen nibble one corner of the cracker. 

“You eat it, then you’re going to drink some water, and you’re going to keep it down for fifteen minutes so I can pump you full of painkillers.” 

Stephen made a pathetic sound from the floor, Rory rolling her eyes again before stepping over him to start the shower. 

“I’m showering first, then you’re going to, because you smell like a distillery.” 

“Are you mad at me?” Stephen mumbled from the floor, unable to move without every inch of his body pulsing in pain. 

“No, I’m mostly mad at Callum,” she replied, stripping down and stepping into the shower despite Stephen’s prone form only inches away on the floor. “I just wanted you to be safe, and I think it’s pretty clear you overdid it last night.” 

“It’s not all Cal’s fault, I could have stopped,” he grumbled. 

“I know you could have, so you’re not in the clear either.” 

Stephen attempted to turn to look at the shower, but the pain that sent a lightning bolt through his head stopped him before he’d moved an inch. 

“You’re going to lie on the couch today and watch trashy American television with me while I take care of you,” Rory explained from the shower. “You’re going to eat and not complain, and then tonight when you’re better you get the couch while I sleep in the giant, comfortable bed alone.” 

He groaned, Rory not sure if it was because of the prospect of sleeping on the couch or American television causing it. Seeing his anguish, she decided to milk this for all it was worth.

“And we’re getting a cat.” 

“Rory, I don’t want-“

“And I didn’t want my naked fiancé on my doorstep at three in the morning,” Rory countered, finishing rinsing off and wrapping a towel around herself. “We’re getting a cat, I’m naming her Mittens, and you’re going to deal with it, or I am going to make you go out shopping with me today while you have a raging hangover.” 

“Fine,” he grumbled, pulling the blanket back over his face. 

“I know it’s fine,” Rory replied, standing over him and pulling the blanket away from his face. “Now, if you want me to kiss you today…you need to brush your teeth. A few times.” 

“You’re the most evil creature I’ve ever met.” 

“I love you too.”


End file.
